1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to containers for aerial delivery of objects. More particularly, the invention is directed to containers that are adapted to absorb impact during aerial delivery of objects.
2. Description of the Background
Numerous circumstances require the transport and delivery of various kinds of cargo to inaccessible or remote areas where ground transportation is not possible or timely. For example, in the event that people are trapped or disabled in a remote area, a hostile environment, or an area ravaged by a natural disaster, it may become necessary or desirable to supply them with food, water, medicine, shelter, and other supplies as rapidly as possible. Similarly, in times of warfare, battlefields may be in remote locations or hostile environments. Likewise, it may be necessary to deliver supplies such as fuel to stranded people. Of course, in times of war or other hostilities, it may be essential to provide support to permit the stranded personnel to evacuate the position in which they find themselves.
Many remote locations or hostile environments may be in areas such as deserts or large expanses of otherwise uninhabited or inhospitable terrain. Because of the remoteness of a location or its inaccessibility, supplies are often delivered by air drops from airplanes or helicopters. In the event of natural disasters and other emergencies, time may be of the essence to deliver sustenance, medicine, or other critical items to people cut off from life-sustaining supplies. For example, it might be essential to provide water to people cut off from a clean water supply in the event of flooding, an earthquake, and/or a hurricane.
While in an emergency, the cost of packaging and delivering supplies to those in need may be considered secondary, it is nevertheless important to provide packaging for the supplies that can be formed and distributed on a reasonably cost-effective basis. Also, the space taken up by the containers or packages, as well as the amount and cost of material from which the containers are fabricated, should be minimized to increase the cost effectiveness thereof.
In the past, relief supplies have been delivered by dropping pallets of supplies by parachutes connected to containers. Typically, large amounts of supplies are stacked on multiple pallets and parachutes are connected to the pallets. If the parachutes are undersized or fail, the containers descend at a rapid rate and the container may be ruptured and the contents thereof lost, or people on the ground may be harmed by the rapidly-descending containers. Certain items, often referred to as “undroppables,” are known to rupture, break, or otherwise arrive in a defective manner even in perfect drop conditions. Undroppables may include, for example, water, cooking oil, motor oil, gasoline, other liquids, grains, building supplies, food, medication, sensitive electronic equipment, other solids, or other materials that are prone to damage upon impact with the ground. Furthermore, if the supplies are stacked together on a pallet and the pallet air drop is off target, the supplies may be unrecoverable by those in need. Even if the pallet of supplies is recoverable, bandits or guerillas have been known to hoard the supplies and either keep them from people in need or ransom the supplies.
There is a continuing need for a cost-effective package for emergency supplies that may be easily air dropped and distributed to a large number of people with a minimized risk of damage to the supplies and harm to the people collecting the supplies.